Ray DantonActor

Ray Danton (September 19, 1931 – February 11, 1992), also known as Raymond Danton, was a radio, film, stage, and television actor, director, and producer whose most famous roles were in the screen biographies The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond (1960) and The George Raft Story (1962). He was married to actress Julie Adams from 1954–1981.
Ray Danton, born Raymond Kaplan in New York City, entered show business as a child radio actor on NBC radio's Let's Pretend show in 1943. Danton did many stage roles whilst attending the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Technical School and in 1950 went to London to appear on stage in the Tyrone Power production Mister Roberts.
Danton's acting career was put on hold when he served in the United States Army infantry in the Korean War from 1951–1954.
Danton made his film debut in Chief Crazy Horse in 1955 and became contracted to Universal Pictures His second film I'll Cry Tomorrow led to his typecasting as a smooth but dangerous villain. His third film for Universal The Looters was where he met his future wife Julie Adams.

Family

Military conflicts participated

Korean War

Started

June 25th, 1950

Ended

July 27th, 1953

Wikipedia article

The Korean War was a war between North and South Korea, in which a United Nations force led by the United States of America fought for the South, and China fought for the North, also assisted by the Soviet Union. The war arose from the division of Korea at the end of World War II and from the global tensions of the Cold War that developed immediately afterwards. Korea was ruled by Japan from 1910 until the closing days of World War II. In August 1945, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and—by agreement with the United States—occupied Korea north of the 38th parallel. U.S. forces subsequently occupied the south. By 1948, two separate governments had been set up. Both governments claimed to be the legitimate government of Korea, and neither side accepted the border as permanent. The conflict escalated into open warfare when North Korean forces—supported by the Soviet Union and China—invaded South Korea on 25 June 1950. On that day, the United Nations Security Council recognized this North Korean act as invasion and called for an immediate ceasefire.

1.
Apache Blood
(1975)

Chief Yellow Shirt (Ray Danton) is hunting down white men because they broke a treaty. He and all three of his braves find a small squad of U.S. soldiers and chase after them. Among the soldiers is a mountain man (Dewitt Lee) who is attacked by a bear and left for dead. He eventually gains consciousness and starts fighting off the Indians while trying to catch up with the soldiers. Eventually, there is only Yellow Shirt and the mountain man left. They now race across the desert and try to outsmart each other and survive wind storms, snakes, and hallucinations of their respective women.

3.
The Last Mercenary
(1968)

The Last Mercenary is a 1968 Spanish/West German/Italian international co-production of a modern day Western. It was directed by Mel Welles who was uncredited for financial funding reasons. The film was shot in Rio de Janeiro and Spain.

Secret Agent Super Dragon is a 1966 French, Spanish and Italian international co-production Eurospy spy film, directed by Giorgio Ferroni and starring Ray Danton as the titular secret agent. The film was later mocked and riffed on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Filmed in Amsterdam but set in Michigan, the film was released in the United States by United Screen Arts, a company created by actor Dale Robertson.

The Longest Day is a 1962 war film based on the 1959 history book The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan, about D-Day, the Normandy landings on June 6, 1944, during World War II. The film was produced by Darryl F. Zanuck, who paid the book's author Ryan US$175,000 for the film rights. The screenplay was by Ryan, with additional material written by Romain Gary, James Jones, David Pursall and Jack Seddon. It was directed by Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, and Bernhard Wicki. The Longest Day, which was made in black and white, features a large ensemble cast including John Wayne, Kenneth More, Richard Todd, Robert Mitchum, Richard Burton, Sean Connery, Henry Fonda, Red Buttons, Rod Steiger, Leo Genn, Peter Lawford, Gert Fröbe, Irina Demick, Bourvil, Curt Jürgens, Robert Wagner, Paul Anka and Arletty. Many of these actors played roles that were virtually cameo appearances and several cast members such as Fonda, Genn, More, Steiger and Todd saw action as servicemen during the war, with Todd actually being among the first British officers to land in Normandy in Operation Overlord and participated in the assault on Pegasus Bridge.

9.
The George Raft Story
(1961)

The George Raft Story is a 1961 American biographical film of Hollywood film star George Raft. Ray Danton portrays Raft and the film was directed by Joseph M. Newman. The picture was retitled Spin of a Coin for release in the United Kingdom, a reference to Raft's character's famous nickel-flipping in Scarface, the film that launched Raft's career as a major gangster actor.

11.
A Fever in the Blood
(1961)

A Fever in the Blood is a 1961 late noir or neo-noir film featuring a roster of Warner Bros. television contract players, often miscast according to the film's producer and screenwriter Roy Huggins in his Archive of American Television interview, about crooked political dealings. Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. plays a judge and the rest of the cast includes Angie Dickinson, Jack Kelly, Don Ameche, Ray Danton, Herbert Marshall, Rhodes Reason, Robert Colbert, Carroll O'Connor, Parley Baer, and Saundra Edwards. The picture was directed by Vincent Sherman, with music by Ernest Gold, cinematography by J. Peverell Marley, and editing by William H. Ziegler.

Ice Palace is a 1960 motion picture adapted from Edna Ferber's 1958 novel of the same name. The film, directed by Vincent Sherman and starring Richard Burton, dramatized the debate over Alaska statehood. Alaska had become a state in 1959.

15.
Yellowstone Kelly
(1959)

Yellowstone Kelly is a 1959 Western Technicolor movie based upon a novel by Heck Allen, with a screenplay by Burt Kennedy starring Clint Walker as Yellowstone Luther Kelly, and directed by Gordon Douglas. The film was originally supposed to be directed by John Ford with John Wayne in the Clint Walker role but Ford and Wayne opted to make The Horse Soldiers instead. At the time the film was notable for using the leads of then popular Warner Bros. Television shows, Cheyenne, Lawman, 77 Sunset Strip, and The Alaskans as well as Warners contract stars such as Andra Martin, Claude Akins, Rhodes Reason and Gary Vinson. The novel was based on the real life Luther Kelly.

16.
Tarawa Beachhead
(1958)

Tarawa Beachhead is a 1958 film directed by Paul Wendkos. It stars Columbia Pictures contract star Kerwin Mathews in his first leading role and the husband and wife team of Ray Danton and Julie Adams. The working title of the film was Flag over Tarawa and was originally to have starred Ronald Reagan.

20.
Chief Crazy Horse
(1955)

Chief Crazy Horse is a 1955 western film released by Universal Pictures and directed by George Sherman, starring Victor Mature. The film is a fictionalized biography of the Lakota Sioux Chief Crazy Horse that, unusually for the time, portrays the Native American Indians in a more sympathetic light.

Awards

Top cast

Subjects

Music by

Cinematographers

Costumography

Soundtrack

Languages

Country

Rosemary Odell

English

United States of America

21.
I'll Cry Tomorrow
(1955)

I'll Cry Tomorrow is a biopic which tells the story of Lillian Roth, a Broadway star who rebels against the pressure of her domineering mother and reacts to the death of her fiancé by becoming an alcoholic. It stars Susan Hayward, Richard Conte, Eddie Albert, Margo, and Jo Van Fleet. The screenplay was adapted by Helen Deutsch and Jay Richard Kennedy from the 1954 autobiography by Lillian Roth, Mike Connolly and Gerold Frank. It was directed by Daniel Mann. The film won the Academy Award for Costume Design for Helen Rose, and was entered into the 1956 Cannes Film Festival.

Guest TV appearances

77 Sunset Strip

Program genre

External resources

77 Sunset Strip is an American television private detective series created by Roy Huggins and starring Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Roger Smith and Edd Byrnes. Each episode was one hour long.nThe show was the subject of an ownership battle between Roy Huggins and Warner Brothers, which was the proximate cause of Huggins' departure from the studio. The series was based on novels and short stories written by Huggins prior to his arrival at Warner, but, as a matter of legal record, derived from a brief Caribbean theatrical release of its pilot, Girl on the Run. The show ran from 1958 to 1964.

Barnaby Jones

Program genre

External resources

Barnaby Jones is a television detective series starring Buddy Ebsen and Lee Meriwether as a father and daughter-in-law who run a private detective firm in Los Angeles. The show ran on CBS from January 28, 1973 to April 3, 1980, beginning as a mid-season replacement.

Bat Masterson

Program genre

External resources

Bat Masterson is an American Western television series which showed a fictionalized account of the life of real-life marshal/gambler/dandy Bat Masterson. The title character was played by Gene Barry and the half-hour black-and-white shows ran on NBC from 1958 to 1961. The series was produced by Ziv Television Productions, the company responsible for such hit series as Sea Hunt and Highway Patrol.

Appearance history

Epizode

Air date

Role

Writer

Director

S01-E36

July 22nd, 1959

Tonio

Walter Doniger

Behind Closed Doors

Program genre

Docudrama

Drama

External resources

Behind Closed Doors is an American drama series set during the Cold War hosted by and occasionally starring Bruce Gordon in the role of Commander Matson. The series, which aired on NBC from October 2, 1958, to April 9, 1959, focuses, among other themes, on how the former Soviet Union stole American missile secrets and proposes steps to prevent further espionage. Behind Closed Doors is based on the files and experiences of Rear Admiral Ellis M. Zacharias, who offers comments at the end of each segment.nBehind Closed Doors, a Screen Gems production, replaced Jackie Cooper's sitcom The People's Choice, followed the NBC quiz show, Twenty-One, and preceded The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show. Its competition was The Pat Boone Chevy Show on ABC and Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater western anthology series on CBS.

Appearance history

Epizode

Air date

Role

Writer

Director

S00-E21

March 5th, 1959

Ralph Drake

Robert C. Dennis

Bourbon Street Beat

Program genre

Drama

External resources

Bourbon Street Beat is a private detective series which aired on the ABC network from 1959-1960 and featured Richard Long as Rex Randolph, Andrew Duggan as Cal Calhoun, Van Williams as Kenny Madison, and Arlene Howell as Melody Lee Mercer, the secretary at the New Orleans detective agency in which they worked.

Bronco

Program genre

External resources

Bronco is a Western series on ABC from 1958 through 1962. It was shown by the BBC in the United Kingdom. The program starred Ty Hardin as Bronco Layne, a former Confederate officer who wandered the Old West, meeting such well-known individuals as Wild Bill Hickok, Billy the Kid, Jesse James, Theodore Roosevelt, Belle Starr, Cole Younger, and John Wesley Hardin.

Cannon

Program genre

External resources

Cannon is a CBS detective television series produced by Quinn Martin which aired from March 26, 1971 to March 3, 1976. The primary protagonist is the title character, private detective Frank Cannon, played by William Conrad. He also appeared on two episodes of Barnaby Jones.nCannon is the first Quinn Martin-produced series to be aired on a network other than ABC.

Caribe

Program genre

External resources

Caribe is an American mid-season replacement crime drama that was originally broadcast on Monday nights at 10:00–11:00 pm from February 17–May 12, 1975 on the American Broadcasting Company. The Quinn Martin-produced series was about the exploits of the fictional Caribbean Force, a highly mobile unit of the Miami Police Department which combat crime in Miami and wherever American interests were involved in the Caribbean. The stars were Stacy Keach as Lieutenant Ben Logan, Carl Franklin as Sergeant Mark Walters and Robert Mandan as Deputy Commissioner Ed Rawlings. The series was plagued by production problems.

Appearance history

Epizode

Air date

Role

Writer

Director

S01-E01

February 17th, 1975

Reese

Cheyenne

Program genre

Adventure Film

Action

Western

Action/Adventure

External resources

Cheyenne is an American western television series of 108 black-and-white episodes broadcast on ABC from 1955 to 1963. The show was the first hour-long western, and in fact the first hour-long dramatic series of any kind, with continuing characters, to last more than one season. It was also the first series to be made by a major Hollywood film studio which did not derive from its established film properties, and the first of a long chain of Warner Brothers original series produced by William T. Orr.

Appearance history

Epizode

Air date

Role

Writer

Director

S05-E05

December 19th, 1960

Al Lestrade

Climax!

Program genre

Anthology

Anthology series

External resources

Climax! is an American anthology series that aired on CBS from 1954 to 1958. The series was hosted by William Lundigan and later co-hosted by Mary Costa. It was one of the few CBS programs of that era to be broadcast in color. Many of the episodes were performed and broadcast live, and although the series was transmitted in color, only black-and-white kinescope copies of some episodes survive to the present day.

Appearance history

Epizode

Air date

Role

Writer

Director

S04-E32

May 15th, 1958

Eric Bartholomew

S04-E19

January 23rd, 1958

Colt .45

Program genre

Western

External resources

Colt .45 is an American Western series which aired on ABC between October 1957 and September 1960.nThe half-hour program is loosely based on the 1950 Warner Bros. film of the same name, starring Randolph Scott. Colt .45 was part of the William T. Orr-produced array of westerns which Warner produced for ABC in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Death Valley Days

Program genre

Official site

External resources

Death Valley Days is an American radio and television anthology series featuring true stories of the old American West, particularly the Death Valley area. Created in 1930 by Ruth Woodman, the program was broadcast on radio until 1945 and continued from 1952 to 1970 as a syndicated television series, with reruns continuing through August 1, 1975.nThe series was sponsored by the Pacific Coast Borax Company and hosted by Stanley Andrews, Ronald Reagan, Robert Taylor, and Dale Robertson. With the passing of Dale Robertson in 2013, all the former Death Valley Days hosts are now deceased. Hosting the series was Reagan's final work as an actor; he also was cast in eight episodes of the series.

Empire

Program genre

External resources

Empire is an hour-long Western television series set on a 1960s 500,000-acre ranch in New Mexico, starring Richard Egan, Terry Moore, and Ryan O'Neal. It ran on NBC from September 25, 1962, to May 14, 1963.nIn the second abbreviated season, from September 24 to December 31, 1963, it was renamed Redigo after Egan's title character, Jim Redigo, the general manager of the fictitious Garrett ranch in Empire, and reduced to a half-hour.

Appearance history

Epizode

Air date

Role

Writer

Director

S00-E15

January 8th, 1963

Four Thumbs

Hallmark Hall of Fame

Program genre

Drama

Anthology

Anthology series

External resources

Hallmark Hall of Fame is an anthology program on American television, sponsored by Hallmark Cards, a Kansas City based greeting card company. The longest-running primetime series in the history of television, it has a historically long run, beginning during 1951 and continuing into 2014. From 1954 onward, all of its productions have been shown in color, although color television video productions were extremely rare in 1954. Many television movies have been shown on the program since its debut, though the program began with live telecasts of dramas and then changed to videotaped productions before finally changing to filmed ones.nThe series has received eighty Emmy Awards, twenty-four Christopher Awards, eleven Peabody Awards, nine Golden Globes, and four Humanitas Prizes. Once a common practice in American television, it is the last remaining television program where the title includes the name of its sponsor. Unlike other long-running TV series still on the air, it differs in that it broadcasts only occasionally and not on a weekly broadcast programming schedule.

Hawaii Five-O

Program genre

External resources

Hawaii Five-O is an American police procedural drama series produced by CBS Productions and Leonard Freeman. Set in Hawaii, the show originally aired for 12 seasons from 1968 to 1980, and continues in reruns. Jack Lord portrayed Detective Lieutenant Steve McGarrett, the head of a special state police task force which was based on an actual unit that existed under martial law in the 1940s. The theme music composed by Morton Stevens became especially popular.

Honey West

Program genre

External resources

Honey West is an American crime drama television series that aired on ABC during the 1965–1966 television season. Based upon a series of novels that had launched in 1957, the series starred Anne Francis as female private detective Honey West and John Ericson as her partner, Sam Bolt.nOnly 30 half-hour episodes were produced. The entire first season is available on DVD.

Appearance history

Epizode

Air date

Role

Writer

Director

S01-E01

September 17th, 1965

Sonny

Ironside

Program genre

Crime

Drama

Crime Fiction

External resources

Ironside is a Universal television series that ran on NBC from September 14, 1967, to January 16, 1975. The show starred Raymond Burr as a paraplegic Chief of Detectives, Robert T. Ironside. The character debuted on March 28, 1967 in a TV movie. When broadcast in the United Kingdom the show was initially titled A Man Called Ironside. The show earned Burr six Emmy and two Golden Globe nominations.

Laramie

Program genre

External resources

Laramie is an American Western television series that aired on NBC from 1959 to 1963. A Revue Studios production, the program originally starred John Smith as Slim Sherman, Robert Fuller as Jess Harper, Hoagy Carmichael as Jonesy and Robert L. Crawford, Jr., as Andy Sherman.

Lux Video Theatre

Program genre

External resources

Lux Video Theatre is an American anthology series that was produced from 1950 until 1959. The series presented both comedy and drama in original teleplays, as well as abridged adaptations of films and plays.

Maverick

Program genre

External resources

Maverick is an American Western television series with comedic overtones created by Roy Huggins. The show ran from September 22, 1957 to July 8, 1962 on ABC and stars James Garner as Bret Maverick, an adroitly articulate cardsharp. Eight episodes into the first season, he was joined by Jack Kelly as his brother Bart, and from that point on, Garner and Kelly alternated leads from week to week, sometimes teaming up for the occasional two-brother episode. The Mavericks were poker players from Texas who traveled all over the American Old West and on Mississippi riverboats, constantly getting into and out of life-threatening trouble of one sort or another, usually involving money, women, or both. They would typically find themselves weighing a financial windfall against a moral dilemma. More often than not, their consciences trumped their wallets since both Mavericks were intensely ethical.nWhen Garner left the series after the third season due to a legal dispute, Roger Moore was added to the cast as their cousin Beau Maverick. Robert Colbert appeared later in the fourth season as a third Maverick brother, Brent Maverick.

Appearance history

Epizode

Air date

Role

Writer

Director

S04-E16

January 1st, 1961

Don Felipe Archelata

Robert B. Sinclair

McCloud

Program genre

Drama

Police procedural

Crime Fiction

External resources

McCloud is an American television police drama that aired on NBC from 1970 to 1977. The title role is played by Dennis Weaver as Marshal Sam McCloud, a law officer from Taos, New Mexico, on semi-permanent special assignment with the New York City Police Department.

Night Gallery

Program genre

External resources

Night Gallery is an American anthology series that aired on NBC from 1970 to 1973, featuring stories of horror and the macabre. Rod Serling, who had gained fame from an earlier series, The Twilight Zone, served both as the on-air host of Night Gallery and as a major contributor of scripts, although he did not have the same control of content and tone as he had on The Twilight Zone. Serling viewed Night Gallery as a logical extension of The Twilight Zone, but while both series shared an interest in thought-provoking dark fantasy, the lion’s share of Zone‘s offerings were science fiction while Night Gallery focused on horror and the supernatural.

Playhouse 90

Program genre

External resources

Playhouse 90 is an American television anthology series that aired on CBS from 1956 to 1960 for a total of 133 episodes. The show was produced at CBS Television City near the Los Angeles district of Hollywood in California. Since live anthology drama series of the mid-1950s usually were hour-long shows, the title highlighted the network's intention to present something unusual: a weekly series of hour-and-a-half-long dramas rather than 60-minute plays.

Police Story

Program genre

External resources

Police Story is an anthology television crime drama that aired on NBC from 1973 through 1978. The show was the brainchild of author and former policeman Joseph Wambaugh and represented a major step forward in the realistic depiction of police work and violence on network TV. It was produced by David Gerber and Mel Swope.nAlthough it was an anthology, there were certain things that all episodes had in common; for instance, the main character in each episode was a police officer. The setting was always Los Angeles and the characters always worked for some branch of the LAPD. Notwithstanding the anthology format, there were recurring characters.

Redigo

Program genre

External resources

Redigo is a 15-week Western dramatic series, set on a New Mexico ranch during the early 1960s, which aired over NBC from September 24 to December 31, 1963. The series features Richard Egan as ranch owner Jim Redigo, Roger Davis as Mike the ranch hand, and Elena Verdugo as Gerry. Don Diamond appeared in four episodes, three as the character Arturo.nRedigo was the truncated second half-hour season of the previous one-hour series, Empire, which aired from September 25, 1962, to May 13, 1963. Both programs were placed on the Tuesday evening schedule against CBS's The Red Skelton Show. Redigo also lost out in the ratings to the ABC military sitcom, McHale's Navy, starring Ernest Borgnine and Tim Conway.nIn Redigo, Egan's character Jim Redigo was no longer the manager of the large Garrett Ranch but the owner of his own smaller spread nearby. The half-hour format made it hard for the program to develop complex characters as had been done in the initial one-hour version of the show.

Appearance history

Epizode

Air date

Role

Writer

Director

S01-E11

December 3rd, 1963

Schlitz Playhouse of Stars

Program genre

Anthology series

Anthology

External resources

Schlitz Playhouse of Stars is an anthology series that was telecast from 1951 until 1959 on CBS. Offering both comedies and drama, the series was sponsored by the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company. The title was shortened to Schlitz Playhouse, beginning with the fall 1957 season.

Sugarfoot

Program genre

External resources

Sugarfoot is an American western television series that aired on ABC from 1957 to 1961. The Warner Brothers production stars Will Hutchins as Tom Brewster, an Easterner who comes to the Oklahoma Territory to become a lawyer. Jack Elam is cast in occasional episodes as sidekick Toothy Thompson.

Surfside 6

Program genre

External resources

Surfside 6 is an ABC television series which aired from 1960 to 1962. The show centered on a Miami Beach detective agency set on a houseboat and featured Troy Donahue as Sandy Winfield II; Van Williams as Kenny Madison; and Lee Patterson as Dave Thorne. Diane McBain co-starred as socialite Daphne Dutton, whose yacht was berthed next to their houseboat. Margarita Sierra also had a supporting role as Cha Cha O'Brien, an entertainer who worked at The Boom Boom Room, a popular Miami Beach hangout at the Fontainebleau Hotel, directly across the street from Surfside 6. Surfside 6 was in fact a real address in Miami Beach, where an unrelated houseboat was moored at the time; it can also be seen in the sweeping aerial establishing shot of the Fontainebleu in 1964's Goldfinger.

Switch

Program genre

External resources

Switch is an American action-adventure, tongue-in-cheek detective series starring Eddie Albert and Robert Wagner, who work as private eyes, for a deceptive sting operation. It was broadcast on the CBS network for three seasons between September 9, 1975 and August 20, 1978, bumping the Hawaii Five-O detective series to Friday nights.

The Big Valley

Program genre

External resources

The Big Valley is an American western television series which ran on ABC from September 15, 1965, to May 19, 1969. The show stars Barbara Stanwyck, as the widow of a wealthy nineteenth century California rancher. It was created by A.I. Bezzerides and Louis F. Edelman, and produced by Levy-Gardner-Laven for Four Star Television.

The F.B.I.

Program genre

External resources

The F.B.I. is an American television series broadcast on ABC from 1965–74. It was sponsored by the Ford Motor Company, and the characters almost always drove Ford vehicles in the series. Alcoa co-sponsored the first season only.

The Manhunter

Program genre

External resources

The Manhunter is an American crime drama that was part of CBS' lineup for the 1974–1975 television season. The series was produced by Quinn Martin and starred Ken Howard as Dave Barret, a 1930s-era private investigator from Idaho.

The Millionaire

Program genre

External resources

The Millionaire is an American anthology series that aired on CBS from January 19, 1955, to June 8, 1960, originally sponsored by Colgate-Palmolive. The series explored the ways sudden and unexpected wealth changed life for better or for worse and became a five-season hit during the Golden Age of Television. It told the stories of people who were given one million dollars from a benefactor who insisted they never know him, with one exception. The series was known in syndication by two titles—The Millionaire, and as If You Had a Million.nThe 1932 film If I Had A Million had a similar plot to this TV show.

The Rockford Files

Program genre

External resources

The Rockford Files is an American television drama series starring James Garner that aired on the NBC network between September 13, 1974, and January 10, 1980, and has remained in syndication to the present day. Garner portrays Los Angeles-based private investigator Jim Rockford with Noah Beery, Jr., in the supporting role of his father, a retired truck driver nicknamed Rocky.nThe show was created by Roy Huggins and Stephen J. Cannell.

The Streets of San Francisco

Program genre

External resources

The Streets of San Francisco is a 1970s television police drama filmed on location in San Francisco, California, and produced by Quinn Martin Productions, with the first season produced in association with Warner Bros. Television. This was an updated version of the 1954-60 The Lineup.nIt starred Karl Malden and Michael Douglas as two detectives in San Francisco. The show ran for five seasons, between September 16, 1972, and June 9, 1977, on ABC, amassing a total of 119 60-minute episodes.nThe series started with a pilot movie of the same title a week before the series debuted. Edward Hume, who wrote the teleplay for the pilot, was credited as having developed the series based on characters in Weston's novel. The pilot featured guest stars Robert Wagner, Tom Bosley and Kim Darby. Douglas left the series at the start of its final season and was replaced by Richard Hatch.

Appearance history

Epizode

Air date

Role

Writer

Director

S02-E04

October 4th, 1973

Al Royce

The Virginian

Program genre

Action/Adventure

Drama

Western

Action

Adventure Film

External resources

The Virginian is an American Western television series starring James Drury and Doug McClure, which aired on NBC from 1962 to 1971 for a total of 249 episodes. It was a spin-off from a 1958 summer series called Decision. Filmed in color, The Virginian became television's first 90-minute western series. Immensely successful, it ran for nine seasons—television's third longest running western. It follows Bonanza at fourteen seasons and 430 episodes, and Gunsmoke at twenty seasons and 635 episodes.

Appearance history

Epizode

Air date

Role

Writer

Director

S01-E07

November 7th, 1962

Lt. Steve Hamilton

Bernard Girard

Trackdown

Program genre

Western

Action

External resources

Trackdown is an American western television series starring Robert Culp that aired more than seventy episodes on CBS between 1957 and 1959. The series was produced by Dick Powell's Four Star Television and filmed at the Desilu-Culver Studio. Trackdown was a spin-off of Powell's anthology series, Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater.

Appearance history

Epizode

Air date

Role

Writer

Director

S01-E09

November 8th, 1957

Wagon Train

Program genre

Western

External resources

Wagon Train is an American Western series that ran on NBC 1957–62 and then on ABC 1962–65, although the network also aired daytime repeats, as Major Adams, Trailmaster and Trailmaster, from January 1963 to September 1965. The show debuted at #15 in the Nielsen ratings, rose to #2 in the next three seasons, and peaked at #1 in the 1961–62 television season. After moving to ABC in the autumn of 1962, the ratings began to decline, and Wagon Train did not again make the Top 20 listing.nThe series initially starred veteran movie supporting actor Ward Bond as the wagon master, later replaced upon his death by John McIntire, and Robert Horton as the scout, subsequently replaced by lookalike Robert Fuller a year after Horton had decided to leave the series.nThe series was inspired by the 1950 film Wagon Master directed by John Ford and starring Ben Johnson, Harry Carey Jr. and Ward Bond, and harkens back to the early widescreen wagon train epic The Big Trail starring John Wayne and featuring Bond in his first major screen appearance playing a supporting role.

Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse

Program genre

External resources

Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse is an American television anthology series produced by Desilu Productions. The show ran on CBS television between 1958 and 1960. Two of its 48 episodes served as pilots for the 1950s television series The Twilight Zone and The Untouchables.

Yancy Derringer

Program genre

External resources

Yancy Derringer is an American Western series that ran on CBS from 1958 to 1959, with Jock Mahoney in the title role. The show was produced by Derringer Productions and filmed in Hollywood by Desilu Productions. Derringer Productions consisted of half interest for Warren Lewis and Don Sharpe as executive producers, and a quarter interest to Jock Mahoney for starring in the series, and a quarter interest to Richard Sale and Mary Loos, husband and wife, as creators. Desilu had just completed the 1956 series The Adventures of Jim Bowie which was also mostly set in New Orleans. The show's sponsor was Johnson Wax, now S. C. Johnson, and CLEAR floorwax was a regular sponsor.nThe Sales based the series on a 1938 short story that Richard Sale had written. In the 1930s, Sale was one of the highest paid pulp writers. Which story was never mentioned, but it was about a destitute aristocrat and troublemaker who returns to New Orleans three years after the Civil War. In the story, Derringer has no first name; Yancy was added for the TV series.